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[personal profile] queenofchalices
Title: Lady in Waiting, Chapter 3 - Warm Summer Nights
Series: Bleach
Rating: R
Warnings: AU, het (IchiHime), historical geekery
Spoilers: This is AU. We don't need spoilers, where we're going.
Disclaimer: These characters belong to a lot of Japanese people, namely people like Tite Kubo and Shonen Jump. You'll notice how none of those are me. The LiveJournal format that you'll probably be reading this in (if you're one of my friends) is rough draft and is subject to revision. Consider this a 'sneak peek'. If something sits the wrong way with you, let me know. This will probably (never) be updated weekly, until I eventually drop it like every other project ever. Not responsible for epileptic seizures or allergic reactions. May contain eye-and-brain-bleeding levels of radioactive ANGST and/or peanut products. Please sit a reasonable distance from your computer screen.

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Orihime stared expectantly at the calendar in her hand. The days Rangiku marked loomed before her, her heart beating as she thought about what would happen at the end of that time.

The sun had already set for the day and Ichigo sat outside her curtain of state, silent as usual. In the past few days, she'd taught him the basics of Go, playing with him on a board placed at the edge of her curtain. She had tried to engage him in a game of parts, but had failed; he was abysmally bad at guessing based on the radicals.(1) It was now his turn and she had been lost in thought, staring at the calendar and swallowing her own apprehension as she waited for him to place the black stones on the wooden board.

The hollow 'clack' of the stones hitting the board brought her attention back to the game at hand. Her head snapped up, amber eyes widening as she watched his able fingers place the stones. She blushed behind the curtain of state; even though it was for her privacy, she found that she missed seeing his face. He was quite handsome, after all. He made faces that she wanted to stare at until she memorized every line and crinkle of his brow, nose, eyes, and lips. What was worse, the constant barrier of her screen only made that desire more keen; it was now honed to a fine, sharp edge, like a blade. It made her quiver with excitement and embarrassment whenever she thought about those days finally passing.

Seeing only his fingers made that desire even worse. It led her imagination to strange places and made her heart beat fast. She recalled watching Rangiku with the Captain of the Guard a few days ago; could Ichigo's hands do things like the Captain's did? She imagined they could, and that they could do them to her.

"Your turn," he said evenly. Orihime blushed, his voice having interrupted her scandalous thoughts.

"A-Alright," she replied softly. As she stared at the board and her pot of round, white stones, she could hardly believe that the man on the other side of the screen could desire her. If left to her own interpretations of his words and actions, she never would have thought it. But Rangiku knew much more than she did on these matters, so it was probably prudent to trust her. Besides, he'd been coming to her room every night for the past week and a half, so... there had to be a reason, right?

Her slender fingers hovered over the pot full of full of white stones before picking one and moving towards the board. She placed it without too much thought as to where she was laying it before getting another. She wanted to at least keep up the pretense of having her mind on the game.

But before she placed her next stone, she hovered over the board. If she was perfectly honest with herself, she wanted him to see her hands for as long as possible. It was all she could really show him from behind that curtain; she hoped it had the same effect on him as his own hands had on her. Finally, she placed the stone, not even caring where it landed.

"Geez, Inoue," he finally breathed, "Are you even watching where you put those things? Or is that some kind of strategy?" Orihime blushed as she reached for another pebble; clearly, he wasn't as distracted as she was.

"I-I call this my Super Fire of the Great Plains Strategy!" she stammered, hoping he believed her. After placing another stone, though, she meekly declared his turn.

"A-Ano, Kurosaki-kun?" she asked as soon as she saw his hand hovering over the board, holding a stone. While she didn't want him to move his hand away, she also hoped she might get him to talking, at least a little bit.

"Yeah?" he grunted, looking for a good place to place his stone. He finally laid it on the board, completing a fence around one of her badly-placed white stones. "Hah! Gotcha!"

"O-Oh!" Orihime exclaimed, watching as he collected her stone, "Umm... I was just wondering... what's it like where you're from?" That wasn't a very personal question, right? And she often heard people around the palace talk of home, usually very eagerly! So maybe Ichigo would talk about his home province, too!

"Err," he began, his voice stalling as he placed another black stone slowly on the board, "I'm... from Echizen." Well, that was a start!

"Oh! I have paper from there!" Orihime answered, eager to show some understanding of his home province, no matter how small, "It's very high quality!"

"Yeah," Ichigo responded from his side of the curtain, "They make a lot of paper there. Where we lived was... pretty quiet. Out of the way."

"You and your family?" she asked, seizing the opportunity to inquire further. Secretly, Orihime was burning to know what kind of family he had.

"Me and... my mother and father and two sisters," he said, his voice sounding a bit dryer than normal. Orihime smiled gently as she watched his fingers linger idly over the board.

"They must be lovely young ladies," she commented sincerely. Ichigo grew still on the other side of the screen.

"They were just babies... when I left," he continued. Orihime thought he sounded just a bit forlorn at this, as though he'd missed them growing up.

"Has it been long?" she ventured. His soft noise of agreement on the other side let her know she'd been correct in her guess.

"It's been a while, yeah," he said wistfully.

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'Been a while' was a bit of an understatement. Ichigo actually hadn't been home in several years, not since he found out the truth about himself.

As a small boy, he wanted for nothing. His mother and father were kind and loving, both to each other and to him. His little sisters were adorable. And even though they had nothing like the Imperial Palace, their small house was still a home.

His mother kept their house spotless and made sure their bellies were always full at dinner time. His father acted as an unofficial village doctor, often performing house calls and selling remedies to people who dropped by. One of his sisters was usually strapped to his mother's back as she did housework while he minded the other. When he wasn't doing that, he practiced his shaky handwriting; his father's brushes were often too big for his little hands, though, so it never turned out quite as well as he'd wanted.

One day when he was ten, that all changed.

He was out chopping wood behind the house at his father's request when it happened. It started in his fingers; as he held the axe handle, he noticed that they had become somewhat numb and stiff. He almost dropped the axe as he placed it down into the woodpile to look at his hands.

Literally before his eyes, his fingers were changing. They were becoming straighter, harder, the fingernails pulling back to cover them. As he watched, his nails covered his entire fingers, reaching back to the knuckle. As soon as the hard material reached there, his fingers began to fuse together, forming one solid slat.

As his hands became hooves, Ichigo's face contorted in horror. The change spread up his arms; they grew more slender, his red arm hairs thickening and growing longer, covering his skin with a tawny, orange coat of fur. He felt his legs changing, the bones shifting painfully as his feet became longer and tipped with hooves and his joints reversed. He felt his joints shifting and popping beneath his skin, ligaments and muscles twisting and rearranging themselves until his lower body resembled that of a horse or deer.

As he fell forward, unable to support his weight with his new lower body, the pain of the transformation washed over him. He screamed as hard as he could, his throat growing raw at the sound ripping out of his mouth as it elongated into a muzzle. As his voice slowly turned into a deer's bleat, he panicked even further.

'What's happening to me?!' Ichigo thought frantically. He could no longer even speak the human tongue he was used to - it just didn't come out right anymore.

As he wobbled painfully on his new foal's legs, though, the worst part happened. He heard a woman's shrill scream from the back door of the house; he instantly recognized it as his mother's voice. He raised his new head to look at her, round black eyes full of tears. He could only bleat as he wobbled towards her for reassurance. Mother would know how to fix this, right?

Instead of reaching out to him, though, she shrank against the back wall, sinking to her knees. She covered her mouth with both hands, even as she continued to scream. In later years, Ichigo would realize that what she'd seen - her only son
had just turned into an animal right in front of her, after all - had probably scared her deeply and made her unable to act. At the time, though, the ten year old Ichigo was scared, in pain, and somewhat traumatized. Not knowing what else to do, he bolted.

He ran from the back yard and into the surrounding forests on his new, thin legs, ignoring his mother's frantic calls for him. It hurt at first, adjusting to his new muscles and ligaments, but he kept running. When he was tired, he folded his spindly legs beneath him and slept. When he was hungry, he found he could no longer stomach meat; he could only eat vegetation now. He drank out of streams and found that his new body had its advantages. He could leap over large rocks and run faster than he had ever been able to as a human child.

But he still kept running, wandering south. He eschewed human contact; he knew he'd never seen anything like himself before, and judging by his mother's reaction, there was no telling how they'd react. He occasionally met other animals with human consciousness - nekomata, inugami, tanuki, kappa, spider-people, nue, even an oni once - but most of what he saw now were only squirrels and birds. And finally, he reached the capital and the royal palace.

He didn't know what had attracted him to the palace. Maybe it was the interesting, flashy people moving across the grounds. Maybe it was the low, magical current that pervaded the area. Whatever it was, it had kept him there for the past five years.

Ichigo had reached adulthood on the palace grounds. He'd grown steadily bigger, from a foal to an adolescent to an adult kirin. His horns had started out as tiny nubs, then grew larger and larger. Whenever they grew, they got itchy until he rubbed their velvety covering off on trees and rocks, until they were finally long and beautiful, twisting gracefully back from his forehead into two long, brilliant white spires.

After a few years, he found he could switch gracefully back and forth between human and kirin on a whim. He learned how to speak with other the creatures, even with his new, longer mouth. He learned that what had caused him to transform in the first place was probably the physical exhaustion from the chores he'd done that day; whenever he got too tired, hungry, or angry, he found he couldn't fully access his human form. His kirin attributes would bleed through, creating a bizarre hybrid, if he was able to change anything at all.

But his human side still longed for companionship. He had never seen any other creature like himself in all his wanderings. So he had taken to watching the palace inhabitants with more and more interest, until one day, he'd decided to climb a certain tree with wobbly branches...


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"Your turn," Ichigo said, placing his last stone for that round on the board.

"Oh-!" Orihime exclaimed, in that cute, innocent way of hers. Ichigo wondered if she realized he'd started blushing again on his side of the screen.

She was doing that thing with her hand again, the thing that was driving him nearly to distraction. She would pick up a stone, hover indecisively over the board for far longer than was necessary, then place it in a careless, all-around bad place. During that agonizing time, he had no choice but to focus on her hand; the smooth, white skin, the delicate bones moving underneath, the long, graceful fingers. It was absolutely agonizing. He wondered if she was actually doing it on purpose.

The weirdest part was that he knew he could see the rest of her whenever he chose simply by reverting to kirin form and watching from outside. But in that form, he couldn't be close to her or come inside the palace; he certainly couldn't allow her to see him in that form. If she had the same reaction as his mother, he didn't know what he'd do.

His human body was doing strange things to him as he watched that delicate, slender hand place stones on the board haphazardly. Obviously, he was blushing, his skin a darker shade of red now than his hair. His heart beat hard against his chest, just as if he'd been sprinting out in the forest. Worst of all, though, was that now his hakama fit oddly; he knew he couldn't stand now even if he wanted. They'd stick out at a completely embarrassing angle. He fought the urge to punch that particular part of his anatomy until it settled down. This wasn't exactly something he'd ever had to deal with before.

"Err," he finally remembered how to use words, needing something, anything, to distract him from his awkward human body, "What about you?"

"Eh-?" Came the startled reply from the other side of the curtain, "What do you mean?" Great - she'd probably forgotten what they had been talking about before, too.

"Your family," he said evenly, "What is your family like?" Her slender fingers paused over the board and seemed to droop a little as she contemplated her answer.

"I have a big brother," she replied, perhaps a bit wistfully, "A-And his wife, and her parents. When I'm not here, I stay with them." Ichigo could swear the last part was said with a certain degree of discomfort.

"What about your parents, Inoue?" He asked quietly. She shifted almost imperceptibly behind her curtain, only the rustling of her clothing giving her away.

"Oh, they passed away when I was very young," she said, her voice shining with what Ichigo thought was forced sunniness, considering the subject matter, "So Onii-chan inherited Otou-san's rank and office!(2) He's working hard for everyone, and I'm sure next year he'll get a promotion of his own and move up to the fourth rank! Definitely!"

"Is that why you live with his wife's family?" he asked earnestly. His family had lived independently of any in-laws or grandparents. In fact, now that he thought about it, he only recalled his mother mentioning her parents on very few occasions.

"Eh heh, sometimes I forget you're from the country," Orihime replied sheepishly, "Most of the nobles visit their wives' families. We just live with them because we don't really have enough for a place of our own yet." Ichigo wondered if Orihime was poor by nobility standards. Not that he really had much to judge by.

"B-But we will!" she continued, undeterred, "Onii-chan says that as soon as he gets that promotion, we'll have enough for our own place!"

Ichigo was suspicious, to say the least. Something about her description seemed off. Her brother, at least, seemed like a decent guy, but... what was it?

______________________________________________________________________________________


"Orihime-chan, I'd like you to meet your new sister-in-law," Sora said, his hand on Orihime's shoulder. She was too young yet to hide behind the screen like the older girl her brother had just married.

The matchmaker had said she was a perfect match for Sora, so naturally Orihime believed it.(3) Matchmakers knew people better than they knew themselves, so it was only natural that they'd pick the best girl for her big brother. Orihime had been daydreaming ever since about what her new big sister would be like. Of course she'd be pretty, and smart, and elegant! She had to be all those things; Sora had said she was from a much higher-ranked family than theirs, so it was important that she make a good impression.

"Go on," he encouraged her, "Go say hello."

Orihime did as she was told, trying to remember her manners as she moved closer and shyly peeked around the corner of the screen.

Her new sister-in-law looked to be no more than five or six years older than Orihime herself. She was petite, with splendid cherry-colored robes fanned out around her knees. Her shiny black hair was pulled into ponytails, one on either side of her face, and her eyebrows were plucked and redrawn to perfection. Her thin lips were curved up into a serene smile, and her almond-shaped eyes were a charming gray color.

Altogether, she was the picture of perfect femininity. It made sense, didn't it? Sora had said she'd been a court lady until only this past year when the old emperor and his retinue retired. When her mistress left the palace, his new wife had come back home to stay with her parents and find a husband.

"H-Hello, Onee-san," Orihime said softly, with as deep a bow as her small body would allow. Sora smiled from behind her, pleased that she'd remembered her manners. The girl behind the curtain smiled as well. Orihime's heart swelled; she liked her!

"Sora, dear," the beautiful girl said, her voice lilting and sweet, "Would you mind leaving us? I'd like to get to know my new little sister better." Orihime watched her brother bow slightly to the curtain, his eyes twinkling.

"Of course, Loly-san," he said affectionately before excusing himself. Orihime watched him go excitedly; she was going to get to know her new big sister better.

"Come here, Orihime-chan," Loly chirped, motioning the younger girl towards her with one graceful hand. Orihime smiled brightly as she stepped forward, completely behind the screen.

But as soon as Orihime got within arm's reach of the older girl, her countenance changed completely. Her eyes narrowed and her pretty lips curled up into a sadistic smirk. Her well-manicured hand shot out from her elaborate robes and twisted into the nine year old's russet-colored hair, yanking her head back hard. Orihime gasped, the pain in her scalp causing tears to form in her eyes.

"What is this ridiculous color?" Loly asked with a sneer, "I bet you think you're pretty special, huh, Princess?" Orihime fought back a sob; what had she done wrong?

"I-It hurts, Onee-san!" she cried, not daring to fight back against the bigger girl. Sora would be so disappointed if she couldn't get along with her.

"It hurts, it hurts~" Loly mocked her, jerking her little head this way and that, "Get used to it, brat. You're under my family's roof now, so you have to play by
my rules! Got it?" Orihime could only whimper her agreement.

In the years that followed, Loly showed Orihime exactly what she'd meant. She was often scolded and singled out by Sora's mother and father-in-law, sometimes even for messes that Loly herself had made. She was punished frequently, usually over very minor infractions, if she'd even done anything wrong at all. Loly and her mother struck her often, usually with little-to-no provocation at all.

Sora, meanwhile, was treated fairly well, all catty comments about his baby sister aside. But he also wasn't blind. Even after Orihime was ready to move behind her own curtain of state and he stopped seeing the mysterious bruises on her arms, legs, and face, he could still tell something was wrong.

It hadn't taken him long to figure out what was going on. Unfortunately, he was powerless to do anything. If he tried leaving Loly, her parents would destroy his career and he and Orihime would be out on the street. If he tried reprimanding his spoiled wife, he was nagged into submission by her parents.

Things were heavily strained between the couple; they rarely slept in the same room together, let alone touched one another. And Orihime knew she'd seen strange men leaving off the veranda outside Loly's room more than once. She was far too afraid of the older girl to say anything to anyone, but she suspected her brother knew anyway.(4)

It was in this unstable environment that Orihime reached adolescence. Sora promised that just as soon as he was promoted to the fourth rank, he'd be able to afford them their own place and they would no longer be beholden to his in-laws. But New Years came and went with no change in rank for several years, so Sora was forced to think of another way to defend his little sister.(5)

As Loly and her mother had connections in the Office of Central Affairs at the palace, he pleaded with them to secure Orihime a place at court. They resisted at first, of course, heavily reluctant to do anything more than they were obligated to help the girl. But Sora persisted, doing his best to make it seem as though he wanted rid of her just as badly as they did.

Finally, after several months, he secured a place for her as one of the Princess Imperial's ladies in waiting. They were about the same age, so he hoped it would be a good fit. When Orihime returned home after the first month, her voice brighter than he had heard it in years, he knew it had been the right decision.


_______________________________________________________________________________

Orihime stared at the calendar in her hands. The days had finally passed, crawling along at the pace that only warm, early summer days could. She'd had to endure probing questions from Rangiku, grumbling from Tatsuki, and curious looks from the Princess Imperial (as well as strange, pleading looks from her faithful dog), but finally, the day was here.

She hadn't moved from behind her screen since at least the eighth watch, waiting impatiently for her visitor to make his nightly rounds. Just before sundown, she'd stripped herself of all but one thin under-robe, which she'd left draped open over her shoulders, revealing her generous cleavage. It was just as well; it was hot out that night anyway.

Her stomach was tying itself in knots as she fidgeted, her fingers obviously trying to do the same. She would put the calendar down, only to pick it back up to stare at it a few minutes later. She'd even taken to chewing the hems of her sleeves in her nervousness. So when the blinds in front of her door finally rattled half-way through the tenth watch, her head snapped up so fast that she almost pulled a muscle.

"Ku-Kurosaki-kun?" she asked meekly, not wanting to embarrass herself if it was someone else.

"It's me," he replied, his voice sounding a bit confused. Of course, she reasoned that she usually didn't ask if it was him when he came in.

"Can you... Can you lock that door?" After a beat, she heard the door slide shut behind the blind and its lock click. As she listened to Ichigo's heavy footsteps from the other side of her curtain, her breath caught in her throat; what if she lost her nerve at the last second?

"Are you alright?" Ichigo asked, coming alongside the curtain, but not yet sitting, "You... sounded a little ill just now." There was an odd hesitation in his voice. Orihime suspected he'd been peeking again; after all, she thought she would probably appear sick to anyone who didn't know what she was up to. The idea made her giggle, finally breaking her apprehension.

"I'm fine," she said softly. Then, after a few seconds: "Ne, Kurosaki-kun... Would you... come back here f-for a little bit?" She could see his head tilt from the other side of the screen.

"Do you... need help with something?" came the hoarse, somewhat choked reply. Orihime couldn't help feeling that his gruff reply might actually mean he really was interested.

"Umm," she stammered, feeling her face heat up, "I-I guess you could say that... I really just... wanted to see you for a bit. Face-to-face, I mean." He didn't move for a few long, excruciating seconds. Then, Orihime's heart lept into her throat as he rounded the edge of her curtain.

He was just as wonderful as she remembered, all shaggy orange hair and scowls. This, she realized instantly, was a confused, concerned scowl. It was funny how a single expression could be used for so many different emotions. But as soon as he noticed her distinct lack of nearly all clothing, his expression changed just slightly. It shifted from simply being a confused scowl to being absolutely dumbfounded.

Orihime silently thanked Rangiku for the idea as she rose to greet him, robe falling artfully open. It revealed a strip of bare skin, stretching down the valley of her breasts, over the curves and dips of her little stomach, and down further, to her little patch of dark red curls just above her smooth thighs. Ichigo's face even turned a gratifying shade of purplish-pink at the sight of all the exposed flesh.

"Inoue, what are you-" he stammered, moving to pull her robe closed. As he did, he brushed the warm skin of her collarbone, causing her heart to skip a beat and her stomach to flutter. In response, her little hands closed around his wrists as she looked up at him. As his fingers loosened and let the fabric slip back open, she took a step towards him.

"I just thought m-maybe you'd like to spend the night back here tonight," Orihime said sweetly, her eyes half-lidded. She watched as he swallowed, the hard knot under his flesh bobbing up and down the length of his throat.

"Al-Alright," he acquiesced, his faltering voice betraying him, "Are you sure you don't want to put anything else on? Are you... You're not feeling sick or anything, are you?" Orihime gave him a small smile; this wasn't as scary as she'd thought it would be.

"I feel fine, Kurosaki-kun," she reassured him, "Maybe just a little hot, though. See?" She guided his limp hands beneath her robe, spreading them across her chest to cup the generous curves of her breasts.

She felt him respond, finally; he squeezed her gently, then moved curious fingers to flicker across the tiny pink pearls at the tip of her breasts. His eyes clouded with sensation as he wet his suddenly dry lips; Orihime entertained the notion that he meant to bite her then. As long as he kept moving his hands over her like that, though, she found she couldn't care less if he did or not.

Unfortunately, he did move his hands. They trailed down her sides as she tried to coax them lower. She hoped he realized exactly how warm she felt between her thighs; the Captain of the Guard had spent a great deal of time between Rangiku's, after all. All Orihime could think of was how lovely his fingers would feel, moving rhythmically against her down there. Instead, his hands stayed firmly, but lightly on her waist. Orihime was about to protest in sweet frustration when he moved forward to capture her mouth.

His kiss was gentle and soft and his lips were warm. Orihime had never been kissed before, so every sensation and touch was new to her. When he slid his tongue between her lips, she eagerly opened them for him with a tiny whimper of acceptance. When he pulled her closer to his body, she happily complied, laying a hand on his firm chest and drawing closer to his delicious body heat.

His body was firm and warm, all hard lines and sinuous muscle. As Orihime's hands rested on his chest, she could feel those muscles move beneath her touch. Through their closeness, she inhaled his scent, a mixture of earthy, woody tones and warm spice; it was unlike anything she'd ever smelled before, so uniquely him that she couldn't help but blush. While thus enthralled, his hands slowly moved back up her sides and brushed her sensitive nipples, feeding the fire that was building in the pit of her stomach. As they passed the tender, pink flesh, leaving it to bounce back into place, his hands reached her shoulders. With one shrug, he pushed the flimsy garment off her arms to join the little futon of robes she'd prepared for them after sunset.

She drew closer to his body then, his broad hands and strong fingers massaging her shoulders. His breath had quickened, coming out in deep puffs against her lips whenever he pulled back from her for any reason. But there was something else now consuming Orihime's thoughts.

She could feel it pressing against her stomach as he held her. It was slender and hard, even beneath all the layers of his guard costume. Experimentally, she pressed her hips forward, the muscles of her stomach doing tiny flips at the idea that his body was reacting to her like that, of what he was going to do with that part of his body. As he met her small, shy grind, a muffled moan escaped his lips and vibrated over hers, causing her to whimper in return. Her fingers curled into the fabric of his red over robe, tugging him towards her.

Slowly, slowly she pulled him down to the soft bed of silken robes with her, settling on her knees before him between interspersed kisses. Her thighs were spread just enough to allow her to straddle his lap as his hands slid down to grip her hips. He pulled her forward to secure her body against his, her weight resting firmly against the straining bulge that had grown in his loose hakama. As her lower body came to rest against his, she could feel the heat of his erection through the layers of fabric. She could feel her warm, pink folds quiver with the excitement of the moment, knowing what was beneath her.

As Ichigo seemed reluctant to cease kissing her long enough to do anything else, Orihime decided to take the initiative with his clothing. She tugged insistently at his deep red over robe, allowing the fabric at the front to slide deliciously between her thighs. She gasped and blushed deeply at the sensation of that coarse silk abrading the sensitive nub there. These sensations were completely new to her and deliriously addictive. As she tugged that red robe over Ichigo's head, breaking their kiss to reveal his tan, sculpted chest, she ground against his lap once more, not wanting to lose the friction there.

Impatiently, she trailed her fingertips down his sternum and onto his abs until she reached his hakama-himo. This was it, the tie that separated her from the rest of his body; once undone, he would be bare before her in all his earthy, masculine glory. Those fingers that had been teasing him for weeks now hovered over the tie at his waist just as they'd hovered over those pots of Go stones. She vacillated, blushing heavily as she paused in contemplation of the weighty knot before her.

"Inoue," Ichigo rasped, sliding one hand to cover hers while he supported himself with the other, "I don't... I don't know what I'm doing here." Even though he was leaning back from her now, his whispered confession felt incredibly intimate. Orihime blushed as she lowered her eyelids, lashes brushing the apples of her cheeks.

"It's alright, Kurosaki-kun," she whispered in return, "I... I learned a little from watching Rangiku-san." Reassuring Ichigo actually served to help her shake off her embarrassed stupor and reach forward, pulling the tie loose and slowly undoing his hakama. As she finally pulled the front of his trousers down, it revealed his member; it stood parallel with his lower stomach, erect and proud against the warm night air. It was darker than his skin, reddish in tint, all muscles and veins, and with a thin hood covering the oblong head. And there, at the very tip, was a small bead of moisture glistening like a wet pearl.

Orihime's mouth formed a perfect circle as she focused on it. Her hand hovered indecisively just a hair's breadth from it before she reached out and tentatively brushed her trembling fingers against it. She heard Ichigo gasp at the contact and watched as he twitched beneath her touch.

"Your jade stalk moved," she whispered breathlessly. Ichigo's expression shifted from one of ecstasy to one of mild confusion. Orihime simply regarded him sheepishly.

"My what?" he asked, cocking his head to the side as he arched an eyebrow at her.

"Your... Your jade stalk!" she said, blushing as she grew bolder, wrapping her little hand around it, "You know, your... your marble tower! Your golden scepter! Your--" He silenced her with a kiss.

"Inoue, I get it," he finally breathed after breaking apart from her, "I don't see anything jade or golden about it, though." Orihime pouted her wet lips at him as she slowly began moving her hand up and down his silken shaft.

"Rangiku-san says it's poetic," she corrected. She could feel her need even more keenly now that he was completely exposed from his thighs up. That part of him smelled lightly of musk and heat and male and was only serving to further drive her mad. She was also aware of the scent of her own arousal; as he groaned under her touch, she wondered if he could smell it, too.

"And... what am I supposed to poetically do with this jade stalk?" he asked, his voice betraying just a hint of trepidation. Before Orihime could comment on it, he gave one of her pink nipples a tweak before trailing his hand down her side and onto her hip. He moved his hand down then, sliding it beneath her to rub gently at the wet folds he found there. A gasp escaped her lips as his probing fingers explored her slick pink lips, sending warmth surging through her body.

"I-It goes there," Orihime responded shyly, her cheeks burning, "Inside my blossoming lotus flower." Ichigo's fingers stopped as he regarded her incredulously.

"Are you sure she wasn't talking about actual plants?" he asked, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He seemed to have gotten the idea, though, as he brought Orihime forward by the hip with the hand he'd been leaning on. Still, she decided to play with him a bit more.

"No!" she told him in a conspiratorial whisper as she ground against his fingers, craving more of their length inside her, "I watched Rangiku-san do it with the Captain of the Guard! They did such scandalous things!" Instead of obliging her craving, however, Ichigo withdrew his fingers from between them, leaving a trail of wetness on their skin. She was straddling him completely now, pressed firmly against his length, legs wrapped around his waist; all she'd have to do would be to move up a bit, and she'd be able to finally consume him.

"Show me," he commanded, his voice low and hot. Both his hands had fastened onto her hips now, fingers curling into her flesh. As she leaned forward, leaving a trail of wet heat up his shaft, he moved to kiss her again. Orihime gratefully devoured his lips as she finally felt the tip of his shaft brush her entrance. Wrapping arms around his neck and threading her fingers through his hair, she pressed against him. It was slick and yielding, and she found her mark easily; he nestled easily between her outer lips, sending jolts of delicious electricity tingling through her body. Oh, could it get better than this?

As she pushed him into her, though, the feeling changed. There was resistance, something in the way. What if she wasn't able to fit him completely inside her? She hadn't asked Rangiku about that! Was it possible to be that incompatible with a man physically? She tried again, moving against him, and this time she felt herself stretch to admit him fully into her body.

Orihime broke their kiss to cry out. There was pain there, as though she'd been cut! It was an odd sort of pain, though, colored with fullness and pleasure and pressure. She stifled her gasping cries in the crook of his neck, missing the confused and slightly horrified look that had come over her lover's face.

"What happened?" Ichigo asked, voice wavering, "You're... You're hurt! There's blood! Inoue!" As Orihime moved ever so slightly to better accommodate his girth, she felt the pain lessen. In fact, whenever she moved, that same amazing sensation returned again, helping dull the pain. That movement also helped to dull some of the panic in Ichigo's voice, the feeling of being inside her distracting him.

"You were too big," she whispered with a teasing smile, drawing away from his neck to take a look at his face, "But it... feels kind of good like this." She moved a little to illustrate her point, causing his eyes to flutter attractively as he watched her. His expression was slowly melting from piercing worry to fascinated ecstasy. Orihime couldn’t help but lean forward and kiss him again.

"Don't joke like that," he whispered, breaking the kiss as his fingers tightened on her hips, "I thought I hurt you. I... don't handle blood well." In response, Orihime pressed him deeply into herself, gasping at the feeling of being filled completely.

"N-No, this... This feels amazing," she gasped as she established her rhythm. Her eyelashes obscured her eyes as her cherry lips parted, breathing whispered gasps of her pleasure. Ichigo responded eagerly, nipping at her lower lip and grinding forcefully into her. As soon as he'd been reassured that Orihime wasn't hurt, he seemed to have lost any hesitation.

In fact, Ichigo was becoming bolder and more aggressive now. He began by squeezing her hips until she gasped from the force. Even though it was a bit startling, Orihime couldn't help but moan for him to continue. In response to her devilish encouragement, one hand trailed up her back and tangled in her loose hair. His kisses even moved down from her mouth to her jaw, and ultimately to her throat, his teeth teasing her skin.

In one smooth motion, he tipped Orihime backwards, disentangling himself from her as he supported her slight weight with the hand at her back. Orihime's eyes went wide; she was sure her gaping face looked simply ridiculous. As she bent backwards and drew her legs up to keep from hurting them, though, she realized he was laying her on her back.

"Ku-Kurosaki-kun!" she cried as he came to his knees above her, "What are you--?" Orihime fell silent at the sight above her, though; he looked even more amazing like this.

"Won't it be easier like this?" he asked, finding her entrance once more. He pressed into her again, forcing a moan past Orihime's lips. It wasn't just easier; it felt different now. She didn't know if it was the altered angle from which he was now entering her or if it was just the thrill of being so vulnerable and open beneath him, but doing it like this felt even more amazing. Each time he thrust into her now, she thought she might die of the sheer pleasure of it right then and there.

They were sweating now, bodies slick and glistening in the dim lamplight. A gentle breeze wafted in from the nearly-drawn blinds of the northern patio, only cooling them a little. But when Ichigo finally covered Orihime's body with his own, even that bit of relief disappeared. As he kissed her again, his moans reverberating in the back of her mouth, she thought she might faint from the heat.

That was when it happened. The movement, the heat, the force, it was all too much. Orihime couldn't hold back her desperate voice, crying out as she felt some new force overtake her. Her body burned for a moment, the surge of scorching warmth followed by a wave of cool relief. She felt her muscles pulse around Ichigo, stroking him just as strongly as her hand had earlier. And even as the last ripples of this wonderful new feeling passed through her, she still couldn't fight back the desperate cries escaping her throat.

She could tell Ichigo had noticed it, too. His strokes had become shorter and harder, his breathing heavier and more urgent. Orihime felt herself relax against him, allowing him to bury himself completely inside her.

"Something... Something's happening," he gasped, his face tense. Orihime raised a hand to his face, smoothing over his hot, wet skin and back into his hair, threading her fingers through the short, orange spikes.

"It's okay," she said, arching her back to meet his increasingly rough strokes, "Let it go, Kurosaki-kun." With one last moan, he dove forward and connected with her lips again. Simultaneously, he drove himself deep inside her and then... froze.

She could feel it. He was hot, scorching, pulsating within her. There was something hot and wet filling her body now, thicker than water or her own fluids. It had coated her passage, leaving a slick, tingling sensation in its wake, heightening whatever contact she felt there. Was this the essence Tatsuki had talked about?

Ichigo slowly began to stir again. He moved away from Orihime's lips, burying his warm face in the crook of her neck and leaving her to gulp in the relatively cool night air. Even though he broke their kiss, Ichigo still didn't move again for several more minutes. Orihime took the opportunity presented to run her fingers through his fascinating hair and coo softly into his ear.

"Did you feel it, too?" she finally whispered, causing him to stir enough to face her, "That warm, blissful feeling?" A languid grin stretched across his face as he began to support his own weight enough to gently roll off her.

"Mmm," he affirmed, rolling to his side. He propped himself up on one elbow, his face betraying his fascination as he ran one hand down the length of Orihime's body. "I've never felt anything like that."

"Me neither," she confessed with a blushing smile, "It was amazing. You were amazing, Kurosaki-kun." He favored her with a lopsided grin, pulling her under his arm as he flopped onto his back.

"I could stand to hear that more often from you," he teased, nuzzling the crown of her head.

"You could stand to stay behind my curtain until dawn, too, you know," Orihime murmured playfully, her fingertips dancing lightly across his chest.

"I couldn't leave even if I wanted to now," he confessed to her hair, "You made me too tired."

______________________________________________________________


Meanwhile that night, on the other side of the thin wall separating Orihime's room from Rangiku's, Orihime's three friends sat piled with their faces to the wall.

"Ooh, he really isn't half-bad," Rangiku said with glee, "I wonder if she'd share?"

"She's obviously smitten with him," Tatsuki answered, her voice short, "I just hope she doesn't think he can be any more than a fling. Some kid from the sticks is the last thing she needs."

"This is certainly romantic," the Princess added wistfully, "I would not dare risk this in my august brother's house." Her dog's tail thumped happily against the mats on the floor, causing the Princess to lay a calming hand on his head. "Hush, Zabimaru, they'll hear you."

"I don't think they can hear much of anything right now," Rangiku tittered, "I doubt they'd even notice the Hyakki Yakou marching through at this point."(6)

"True," Tatsuki agreed, engrossed in the spectacle before them, "They're really into it."

"I'm just glad she forgot to plug these holes," Rangiku said, her smirk audible. And then, turning back to the show: "You know, for being just a novice court guard, he certainly has a big sword."

The other two couldn't help but agree.

__________________________________________________________________________

(1) Game of parts: a game in which part of a kanji is covered and the players are supposed to guess the kanji based solely on the radical and given clues. Ichigo is having trouble with it for obvious reasons.

(2) Rank was not given by merit, but by inheritance. While it was almost impossible for men to move up in rank (except by promotion), women could move up in rank through marriage or through their male family members. Sora, and thus Orihime, is of the fifth rank. The difference in income between fourth and fifth rank is a pay increase of about ten times the amount of rice allotted per year.

(3) Matchmakers, as the name implies, set up arranged marriages. While they’re more informal and not actually necessary in modern Japan, as arranged marriages are less common, they were a necessity in Heian Japan, as all marriages were arranged.

(4) Affairs, on the part of both husband and wife, were not just common, they were usually fairly open about them. Many court ladies, for instance, were already married, but also had many lovers at court. Husbands, too, could have many open affairs. The biggest stigma usually came from one spouse ignoring the other in favor of these affairs.

(5) Promotions were announced on New Years Day. Not being promoted was something considered ‘unmentionable’, so when a servant had to announce his master hadn’t been advanced for the year, they simply announced his current rank.

(6) Hyakki Yakou, literally ‘Night Parade of a Hundred Demons’ – a parade of youkai said to happen once a year in the summer time. Any humans who witnessed it would die.
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Crystal Dawn

February 2012

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